Quitter
by cncgrad02
Summary: Everyone has a bad day... sometimes even the smartest kid in the class.


**Hello, all! I'm back! I was watching "Legally Blonde" with Reese Witherspoon the other night and this came to me. This is very very very very very very very very very loosely based on that movie, minus the 'dumb blonde' moments. And no, this story does not contain the Bend & Snap... I'm sorry to disappoint. Anyway, hope yall enjoy! (And on a side note, I don't own anything related to High School Musical, Legally Blonde (there is one line in her that I took directly from the movie), Kleenex, or Tampax/ Kotex tampons.)**

The twenty-three year old was shaken from her nap on the couch as her roommate stormed into the apartment, slamming the door behind her and throwing her bag across the room without a care as to who was disturbed. The young lady set her feet on the floor and sat up, wearily running a hand through her straight auburn locks, as she studied her friend. The girls had been roommates for two years- since their junior year at Stanford- but friends for two longer when they met within the first week of classes in August of their freshman year. They had been in the same Introduction to Sociology class and were paired together during the second week on the project that would be due at the end of the fall semester and very quickly hit it off.

"How was it, Roomus?" Andrea asked. That was the first time since she crossed the threshold of their apartment that Gabriella dared turn her gaze to her beloved friend. The usually full of life, glowing brown eyes were dull and lifeless. Her eyebrows were creased in frustration and her lip slowly quivered with unshed emotion. "That bad, huh?"

"Will you think less of me if I say I'm not going back?" she asked in a voice that was just barely above a whisper, one that Andrea struggled to hear.

Andrea looked at her confused.

Gabriella turned on her heel and walked down the hall to her bedroom. Andrea crinkled her eyebrows in confusion, wondering where this attitude was coming from, as she watched Gabriella shut the bedroom door behind her. She knew her friend well enough to know that the clicking of the lock meant one thing- she certainly wouldn't be the one to lure Gabriella out of her bedroom. That job would be left up to one specific graduate from the University of California, Berkeley.

Andrea smiled as she thought of her roommate's drop-dead gorgeous, long-time, very serious boyfriend. She and Troy met at the first basketball game of the season during their freshman year. Gabriella of course was going, but didn't want to go alone. Enter college best friend Andrea- not to be confused with high school best friend Taylor- to the rescue. Andrea had admitted to Gabriella during one of their late night roommate chats that she better hold on tight to Troy because as soon as she let him go- and he had recovered, of course- he was all her's. Gabriella only rolled her eyes in giddiness and threw her stuffed Wildcat that Troy had made her at the Build a Bear for her nineteenth birthday in Andrea's direction and the girls giggled.

"_Don't worry, Andi. I don't plan to ever let him go!"_

Andrea stood from her spot on the couch and rose up on her tiptoes reaching above her head to stretch her body. The Master's in Education student cringed as she heard the bones cracking and quickly lowered herself to the floor. She made her way across the living room and picked up the cordless phone from the cradle. Hitting the 'talk' button, she started punching numbers, only to stop after the first three as she realized that she didn't know Troy's phone number at his own apartment anymore. The number that she long ago committed to her memory bank would no longer work for him as he had since moved out of the dorm the previous month after graduating, just as the girls had.

She looked across the room to where Gabriella's bag landed and spotted her cell phone. Andrea walked over and picked the Droid up off the floor and quickly found the number she was looking for. She hit send and brought the devise up to her ear and listened as it rang. Finally, on the fourth ring, he answered.

"_Hey, Babe. Are you back from class already? How'd your first day go?"_

"Troy, it's Andi. I think you might want to come by here."

"_Andi? Why are you calling from Gabriella's phone? And now that I think about it, what time is it? I didn't think her classes would be over till almost dinner time. Is she back already?"_

Andrea paused to glance at the clock on the stereo, only to see that it was reading 12:08. She knew that Gabriella's law classes started at 10:00 that morning. Suddenly, her own curiosity was piqued.

"Um, I'm not sure why she's back to be honest. She didn't tell me. She came in pretty upset, mumbled something that surely she didn't mean, and went straight to her room. Troy, I don't think I've ever seen her like this. I'm pretty concerned."

"_That's not like her." _Troy ran his hand through his hair as he pondered what Andrea had just told him.

"That's my point! Can you come by? I think you're the only one who can get her out of her room right now," she asked frantically.

"_Um, I get off at 1. I'll come by then. I can be there about 1:45 or so."_

"What should I do to try and at least get her to open the door?"

"_I don't know. I'll have to put some thought into that one. I know she was pretty nervous last night when I left there, so I'm guessing she didn't eat anything this morning?"_

"I don't think so," she told him.

"_See if you can at least get her to eat something. I'll be there as soon as I can. Have you talked to Maria?"_

"No, not yet. You were my first call. I'll try her mom in a minute."

When the two hung up, Andrea put in a call to Gabriella's mom, but was told that Maria was in meetings all day. She hung up with a sigh of frustration and walked into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and found the chicken enchilada casserole that Maria had brought by the previous night. Andrea knew that it was one of Gabriella's favorite dishes that her mom would make from scratch and pulled the casserole dish out, loading some on a plate to heat it up. When the microwave dinged, she grabbed a Lipton Diet Green Tea from the refrigerator door and walked down the hall to her roommate's bedroom. Gently knocking, she called through the thick wood.

"Gabriella? Roomus, I brought you some lunch."

Andrea waited for a response, only to be met with silence.

"I'll just leave it here by the door for you, okay? You need to eat."

Still no response, so she said the only thing that she knew would receive some kind of acknowledgment.

"I called Troy. He should be here soon."

"_Thanks" _was the one word Gabriella said. Andrea smiled to herself knowing that it would be the only thing she would get out of her until Troy came.

Andrea shrugged her shoulders in desperation and by the time she was ready to give up, she heard a knock on the apartment door. She quickly rushed down the hall to answer it, being careful to take a quick peek through the peephole. Seeing the tall, tanned, blue-eyed boyfriend of her roommate standing in his khaki pants and navy blue shirt that served as his uniform for work, she opened the door and pulled him in.

"Finally. I don't know what else to do. I called Maria and she's in meetings all day. I made her something to eat, but she wouldn't even open the door to take it from me, so I left it outside her door and it's still there. She didn't say anything to me until I told her you were coming. Well, that's not true. When she came home, she asked if I would think less of her if she didn't go back, but other than that-"

"Wait, she said she wasn't going back?" Troy was very confused by this new piece of information that Andrea had just told him.

"Yeah. I don't get it. She's never been this withdrawn."

"Did anything happen this morning?"

"No. I mean, she looked really cute when she left here today and accessorized her outfit with a really kick ass attitude and was ready to take on that law school like she owned it."

"Yeah, that's Gabriella for ya'. She never backs down from a challenge," he said with a grin. "Even the summer before our senior year in high school when she and I went through this temporary break up and-" he paused and looked at Andrea- who had her eyebrows raised expectantly- only to realize that she more than likely hadn't been told this story before. "Well, that's another story for another time. Point is, Gabriella doesn't give up. Something must have really gone wrong today. I'd better go check on her."

"Can I fix you something to eat while you're in there?" Andrea offered.

"No, thanks. If I can get her out of the room, she and I will go out. The fresh air may do her some good. Wish me luck." Andrea chuckled as he walked down the hall.

When he reached his girlfriend's bedroom, he lifted his hand and knocked softly on the door.

"Gabriella? Babe, it's me. Can I come in?" Troy twisted the knob before she had a chance to respond, but was shocked to find it locked. He knocked again. "Babe? Can you come unlock the door for me?" Troy waited patiently, listening to the sniffles coming from the other side of the door. He crossed one foot over the other as he leaned against the wall outside Gabriella's room, checked his watch, and crossed his arms, too. Finally- after six minutes of waiting- he heard the lock twisting and the door creak as she slowly opened it to reveal herself to him. Troy was shocked by her appearance and his face showed as much.

She was wearing her pajamas- something she never did at almost 2:00 in the afternoon, not even when she was sick- and the bright pink 'diva princess' slippers that Sharpay had given her for her last birthday, her face had been washed free from its makeup-tear stains taking the place of her foundation and blush-, and her nose was red from having been blown so much. Her hair was pulled on top of her head in a messy bun as opposed to the very neatly combed curls that normally framed her face. She had taken her contacts out and her brown- yet presently red- eyes were hidden behind her glasses. Just one look at her and his shock subsided. In its place was compassion.

"Oh, Babe. Come here." He opened his arms for her and with her bottom lip quivering, she wasted no time in being enveloped in his embrace. She buried her face in his chest and sniffled as she took comfort in the familiar fragrance of his cologne. He slowly made his way into her room, pulling her along with him- and shut the door behind him. As he walked over to her bed and sat down, she tightened her grip around his neck as if letting him go would absolutely kill her.

Troy took special care as he lowered her into his lap and reached up to take her glasses off. He set them on her desk next to the bed and gently kissed her tears away from both her cheeks. He then brushed her bangs out of her face and reached for a Kleenex.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" he softly asked, as he held her the pale blue tissue.

"No," she whimpered.

"Okay. Do you need anything? What can I do?"

"Just hold me," she requested, her hold on him tightening even more.

The two sat, Troy comfortingly rubbing a hand up and down Gabriella's back while she tried to stop her tears. Finally, after sitting in silence for ten minutes while Troy wracked his brain to figure out how to help, the serenity was broken. Her soft voice finally penetrated their little bubble.

"Troy?" she spoke to get his attention.

"Yeah?" he said, as he pulled back to look at her.

"It all started with the laptop."

"You haven't replaced that thing yet? Brie, it blew up three weeks ago."

"I know. I didn't want to ask Mom to loan me the money; she's already helping me with rent while I'm in school. I wanted to save it up on my own. I've got almost a third of it saved from waiting tables. I was hoping that by the end of next month, I'd be able to get one."

"Sweetheart, I work at Best Buy. I can help you find a good one at a decent price and use my discount to get it even cheaper-"

"But then I'd owe you money and I refuse to be in debt to anyone."

Troy rolled his eyes and chuckled at her reasoning. "Go on," he encouraged her as he brushed a loose curl from her face.

"So _everyone_ in the class had a laptop while I had my 3 ring notebook and loose leaf paper, taking notes. My hand was cramping because I was writing so fast to try and keep up." Gabriella paused in her story to blow her nose again. "And then the professor called me out- by first name, mind you- and asked me a question and I totally blew it. I didn't know the answer and I couldn't even try to flub my way through it. There is no improv in law school like there is in Ms. Darbus' class."

"What was the question?"

"She asked me if I would rather represent a client who was _malum in se _or _malum prohibitum. _I didn't even know what she was talking about! I told her neither because I want a client who was innocent. There was this real heinous girl that was sitting right in front of me who just turned around to look at me and laughed in my face. It was awful! I've never been more humiliated!"

"What did you do?" he asked her.

"I waited until the end of the class and 'went to the bathroom'," she told him, making air quotes as she admitted her location."

"Let me guess... you didn't go to your next class, did you?"

"Oh, no, I went to my next class. Which reminds me, did you know they expect you to already have the first- I don't know, like, ten chapters read by the first day? It's only the first day and already I'm the equivalent of like three weeks behind. I'm beyond the point of being able to catch up and classes have only just begun!"

"You'll catch up, Babe. I mean, you caught up when you got sick during our sophomore year and you missed two weeks of classes."

"Those were undergrad classes, Troy. Totally different."

"Okay, I guess you're right. Sorry."

"It's okay. Thank you for trying." Gabriella sniffled again as she rolled her eyes. Just the thought of the outcome of her day...

"What are you thinking now?" he asked her as he continued to run his hand up and down her back. Most of the time, he was an expert at reading her expressions and know what she was thinking and feeling before she told him, but today however... he was having no luck in that department.

"I'm thinking that-" She paused, trying to get her thoughts in order. She took a deep breath and finally admitted what she had been debating all day. It no doubt made her nervous to verbalize these thoughts, but she knew that it had to be done eventually. "I'm thinking that maybe law school isn't for me after all."

Troy's hand froze as he contemplated what to say next. He knew that she had had a hard day. He also knew that one bad day didn't mean you had to give up on your dream. Yet at the same time, Troy also knew that trying to tell that to his girlfriend would inevitability upset her even more. He took a deep breath as he tried to mentally prepare himself for what he knew he should say instead. Unfortunately, his male brain took over as he started to speak.

"Gabriella, you don't mean that. You just had a bad day and you're upset. You just need to go back out there, take a deep breath, and take it by force. If you win this game or not-"

"Troy, this is not basketball!" She cut him off with a raised voice, pushing him away from her as she stood from the bed and took a few steps across the room, putting several feet of distance between them. "I'm not on your team and one of your pep talks won't make this better! Unlike your team, losing this 'game' is a huge deal for me! I can't just 'shake it off and focus' and 'get my head back in the game'. I made a fool of myself today and that reputation is the one I have to live with for the next three years that I'm in law school!" she said, feeling the tears spring to her eyes once more. Not wanting him to see her breaking yet again, she turned her back to him and crossed her arms over her chest.

"I told you not to say that!" she heard him mutter to himself.

"What?" she asked in confusion, turning around to see him rubbing the back of his neck in shame.

"I was talking to my mouth. My brain told me to not say that, that it would be insensitive and totally the wrong thing to say. But my mouth took over before I could stop it and said what it wanted to anyway."

"Well, what did your brain tell you to say that your mouth failed so miserably at doing so?"

"It was telling me to wrap my arms around you and hold you tight. Then I was supposed to say that I'm completely here for you, regardless of what you decide to do. Then I was going to remind you that you've had bad days before, but that I can understand why this one was so much more devastating for you."

"You can?"

"Yeah. Come here." He held his hand out to her, hoping she'd make her way back to the bed. He smiled when she walked towards him and took his hand, letting him pull her back down into his lap. He reached up to tuck a stray curl that had fallen from her bun behind her ear and started explaining.

"Except for East High and Stanford, you've never been in one school for an extended period of time. When you came to East- even though you didn't realize it at the time- you already had a friend." She smiled when he referred to their re-meeting on her first day at East High. "If you're first day had been tragic, you had someone to talk to. Every other school, you didn't have anybody. Even at Stanford, if you had a bad day, I was always right there."

"You're still right there, though. I'm confused on where you're going with this."

"Okay, let me see if I can say this differently." He paused for a moment and Gabriella waited patiently while he thought. "Law school is hard-"

"Troy-" she interrupted.

"Let me finish, please," he requested, holding a hand up to get her to stop talking. When she nodded, he put his hand back down and continued. "We're not kids anymore. Our parents aren't paying for things for us. It's just us, all on our own. We're adults, as scary as that sounds." He was happy to see that he got a smile from her on that one. "Law school is hard, that goes without saying. But I think what happened this morning was you put too much focus and energy into this day. Yes, it's law school, but that's just it- it's school. Being a student is your thing. You focused too much on the _law_ _school_ part and lost sight of the school part. In your mind, you built law school up to this great big, huge, scary monster- which to me, just thinking of it, it is- but it's not that for you. You were so ready for this when I left here last night. If anyone can go into a law school and totally blow them out of the water, it's you. And do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because you love learning new things. You come home and you make studying fun- which I still can't figure out, but okay, if it works for you... Anyway, my point is, law school shouldn't be scary for you. It's school. Okay, so you had a bad day. Baby, if I gave up basketball after just one bad game, I wouldn't have made it as far as I did; I wouldn't have been at Berkeley and therefore, not here in San Francisco with you. Are you going to give up just because of one bad day?"

"No," she told him quietly.

"Well, then, what are you going to do about it?" Instead of answering him, she just looked in his eyes.

"I understand what you're saying. Thank you for talking to me about this."

"You're welcome, but you didn't answer my question," he reprimanded her with a smirk on his face.

"You're really going to make me answer you like a I'm a five year old, aren't you?" She watched as he just nodded his head before releasing a sigh of frustration and rolling her eyes. "Fine. I'm going to put today behind me, chalk it up to just a bad-luck kind of day, and I'm going back tomorrow with my head held high. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"That's exactly what I wanted to hear," he told her as he leaned forward. "C'mere."

Gabriella leaned forward, too, and met him halfway. Their lips met and moved together in perfect rhythm for a moment before Troy broke the kiss and backed up a fraction so he could look her in the eyes. "I know how important law school is for you and I also know that it's not going to be easy for you for the next three years. I get that. I also get that you're going to be stressed beyond control on some days, maybe even for weeks on end. I just want you to know that if you ever need a break and just need to take a few days to get away from it all, I'm here for you. If you need a punching bag, use me. That's what I'm here for. Just because we won't be able to see each other as often because you'll be busy with studying and all doesn't mean I'm going anywhere."

"I love you," she told him in a small voice.

"I love you, too. I just have to keep all of what I just said in mind myself and not get moody when I can't see you for some reason or another. We both just have to keep in mind that we will get past this. It's just going to take some adjusting and getting used to."

He readjusted their position on her queen size bed so that they were laying down. The two stayed in silence for a moment, basking in the feel of their arms around each other. Finally, Troy broke the silence.

"Okay, here's the plan for the rest of the day."

Gabriella lifted her head off his chest and put the weight of her body on her elbow as she looked down at him. "What's that?"

"First of all, you're going to get dressed because we're going out. Then we're going by the store and I'm going to help you pick out a decent laptop. I know you said you don't want to borrow the money from me, but guess what? You're going to. Pay me back by fixing me dinner once or twice a month, if you have time. I don't care. But you're getting a new laptop today."

"Troy, that's not paying you back," she told him pointedly.

"Yes, it is, Gabriella. More than you'll ever know. I just want to help you and take care of you and I know you want the same. Fixing me dinner is how you can take care of me."

"What about-"

"I'll help you set it up and get it ready for use for class tomorrow."

"How did you know that's what I was going to ask?" she asked with the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

"Because I know you and how technologically challenged you are. You had to have the IT guys from Stanford come and practically rebuild the internal hard drive on your old laptop when you tried to set it up on your own when you moved into the dorm. I was the one along with Eric who help you and Andrea set up your TV and Blue-Ray and Wii in the living room because you two couldn't even hook those up to each other the right way," he reminded her, referring to her roommate's cousin who happened to be Troy's current roommate. "How much money do you have in your computer fund right now?"

Gabriella stood from the bed and walked into her bathroom, returning a few seconds later carrying a Tampax box. He scrunched his eyes together, slightly bothered at the sight of what was in her hands. "What's that?" he asked, pointing at the blue box.

"A box of tampons," she told him in the best 'well, duh' tone she could manage despite the fun she was having at teasing her boyfriend.

"But doesn't Andi use-" he asked. He stopped talking, unable to bring himself to say the word _tampons_. He wasn't sure why, but even still- after nearly six years together- he didn't like to even think of his girlfriend's practices in that area of her personal hygiene. "-_those_?"

Without missing a beat, Gabriella shook her head in response and gave him a verbal answer. "No, she uses Kotex. She and I don't use the same brand." She watched with pleasure as Troy gave a very visible shiver. Call her evil- she didn't mind- but she got a sadistic kick out of watching him squirm when it came to talking about her period.

"Stop! I beg you, woman, please stop!" Gabriella giggled as he practically tackled her back onto the bed, covering her body with his. "It's good to hear you laugh after today," he told her seriously. "But getting back to the topic at hand, what I meant was why are you bringing a box of _those_ out here?"

"Don't worry, it's empty," she told him, rolling her eyes at his slight immaturity. "This is the box I hide my money in." She opened the box and dumped the cash out onto the bed and set to work counting the pieces of green paper. It didn't take her long to announce "One hundred and seventeen dollars".

"Guess what? With the deals we have going right now on laptops in addition to my discount, we may end up with me only putting about seventy or so towards it. That sounds a lot better than what you were thinking you'd owe me, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, that's not as bad as I was expecting."

"Okay, then get dressed and I'll wait in the living room." He gave her one more kiss and climbed off the bed. He stopped as he reached the door when he heard her voice. He turned around just in time to catch her as she threw her arms around his neck.

"Thank you," she whispered into his neck, placing a kiss to the spot where her lips reached.

"You're welcome," he told her. "That's why I'm here. I love you and I want to take care of you."

"I know. And you know what?" she asked with a sparkle in her eyes for the first time since her first class let out that morning.

"What's that?" he asked as he admired the way her eyes sparkled.

"I'm not quitting!"

"And I can't wait to see you on your graduation day and tell you how proud I am of you. I know you can do this, as stressful and as hard as it'll be. I'm already proud of you."

"I can do this. I will do this. Especially if I will have you by my side every step of the way."


End file.
